A change at the top was increasingly in the air, especially after the strengthening of the position of the French Vivendi within the capital of Telecom Italia, but no one thought that the situation would worsen so rapidly. Today, however, the resignation of the managing director has arrived Marco Patuano, who took a step back leaving – for now – all the powers to the president Giuseppe Recchi.
The negotiation for the exit is being defined in these hours but there do not seem to be any uncertainties: even the node of goodwill would have been overcome and therefore it would only be a question of finalizing the details and the press release that will be released before the opening of the Stock Exchange on Monday.
All of his Patuano powers will therefore pass ad interim to President Recchi until the appointment of the new managing director. The task of finding Patuano's successor will be assigned to the president and to the nomination committee. In recent weeks, the CEO of Vivendi, Arnaud de Puyfontaine, has reportedly polled various managers to identify a successor and the names of Tom Mockridge, Flavio Cattaneo (although Telecom Italia has denied), Luigi Gubitosi and Maximo Ibarra. However, the path that will lead to the identification of the new CEO should not be long.
In recent days, shareholders had already expressed their opposition to the financial results in which Telecom accused a deficit of 2015 million for 72, a drop in EBITDA and rising debt. Vivendi had also asked Telecom for bolder cost cuts and, at that point, Patuano must have understood that he no longer enjoyed the trust of the main shareholder and preferred to throw in the towel.
